Watch for These Winners in the Smartwatch Battle

A growing market makes room for more winners

As far as technical specs, Motorola isn’t leaking many details regarding its first venture into the smartwatch arena with its Moto 360.

However, the company is very vocal about letting consumers know that the face is round. The thinking is not to force buyers into wearing a watch shape they’re not used to, thus, creating comfort and familiarity right off the bat. In that same vein, think leather and stainless steel.

Of course the biggest selling point is that Motorola’s Android Wear-powered device will work with all Motorola Android smartphones and with any Android device running 4.3 or later. Moto 360 is expected to be available in summer 2014, but no prices have been released.

You might recall that a little over two years ago, Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. In late January, Lenovo announced that it would acquire Motorola from Google for a fractional $2.91 billion.

Since doing that, shares of the world’s largest PC maker—and new owner of IBM’s $2.3 billion server business—are down 25%. However, that puts the company in undervalued territory, with this new venture with Motorola giving Lenovo the visibility it needs in the smartphone/mobile device arena. With only a 4.9% market share in the final quarter of 2013 as the world’s fourth largest smartphone maker, Motorola’s expertise in phones and mobile technology with Moto X and Moto G is welcomed. It’s expected to help Lenovo establish a much-needed presence in North America.

There’s no reason to believe that the move into the smartwatch market won’t be successful for the now partners … with the ex (Google) working with them hand-in-hand.